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Topic Review (Newest First)

06-25-2009 10:51 AM

hellosailor

tj-
The US has about 300 million citizens (and possibly some 30-50 million illegals on top of that) compared to your 4.5 million. So if the numbers were comparable, we'd have about 13,333 families living aboard, not 205,000 people unless I've done the numbers wrong with a metric conversion.
I doubt we have that many but counting the various houseboat communities it certainly might be possible, or at least half of it might be possible. Bear in mind that compared to Nroway we have a much shorter tradition of very much cheaper land and very much larger farmsteads and estates. Why our women would want to be cooped up in small spaces like boats, when they've been promised a white picket fence and house all their own, I can't begin to guess. I suspect that if Norwegian women were offered the same options--you might have a lot of unhappy men selling off their boats!
Compared to your 307,400 sq. km. of territory, we have just under 9,162,000 sq. km. of land, 29 times the land mass and way less of it split up into islands or mountain fjords. Then again...we also have a lot of ex-Norwegians scattered about, perhaps the ones who didn't want to live on boats all came here?

06-25-2009 10:43 AM

St Anna

Admirals outrank Captains.

My Admiral was the one leaning on me to get my act together and find a boat to go cruising. Who am I to argue!!

As to the
'You could die" arguement - Ok - yes, well the 7 P's of life shoud prevail.

I mentioned this to a friend and she said plainly, "The ocean is really dangerous, you could die".

You have to adore women, how can you possibly argue with such a sincere statement of fact ?

06-25-2009 09:35 AM

tjaldur

Most fascinating topic. Even in Norway, which is more or less a heap of rocks with a coastline. Where we have a 2000 years sailing/boating tradition and many people live on islands and use boats every day to go to the mainland. We are only 4,5 million people and we have about 700 000 leisure boats, and I believe it will be difficult to find a Norwegian that does not have some kind of boating experience. Or having once in a lifetime caught a fish in the sea.

So it can not be ignorance of the sea that makes it difficult to find a wife that have a dream of living aboard a boat. Although most wives in Norway consent to be transported from the main rock to some smaller rock out in the sea within 30 - 60 minutes ride.

As far as I now there are about 200 families living aboard in Norway and about 100 families sailing around the world somewhere. That is 7 persons in 10 000. That should correspond to about 205 000 Americans. So I guess it is a bit easier en Norway? Pr. capita that is.

Now the topic is often discussed in fora like this. That is, more men want to live aboard and facing the challenges of convincing the wife. These discussions may be summed up more or less like this:

My wife once told me that I love that boat so much I should go live on it, I started packing. I never heard that statement again.

When I was first married I would discuss what my plans were for my boat or my cars and my wife would get involved and it then it got complicated, I would never accomplish what I wanted. I finally quit asking and just did what I wanted the discussions lasted the same amount of time and I ended up with what I wanted.

The last item I did that with was with a Triumph TR6, I have restored LBC's for years. I bought this one and drug it home, as I was unloading it she said I can't believe you bought this with out asking me I said yep sure did. A year later she is riding around in the car with me and going to events meeting friends and have a great time.